Twitch and Xbox Introduce Major New Features for the Xbox One Community

The Twitch on Xbox One app just got a huge update, thanks to some great new technology. The update brings a slew of advanced broadcast filtering features that should help you find exactly what you want to watch at a moment’s notice. The app now uses Xbox Live’s new ability to associate real-time gameplay stats with broadcasts, which enables a massive array of search options. Depending on the game, the filters may include player stats, game modes, maps, player skill level, in-game activity, progress, and more.

Want to search for the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare broadcaster with the highest kill/death ratio? How about instantly queuing up a Halo match from whoever has the highest rank in Slayer mode, or finding Forza Horizon 2 players who are driving a specific class of car? This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Twitch on Xbox One app’s broad array of new search options, which unleashes a whole new level of innovation and community-building potential. This new Twitch experience also helps up-and-coming broadcasters find audiences. After all, if you’re one of the best players of a game, yet you’re brand new to Twitch, you could quickly attract attention as viewers filter by skill.

In addition to advanced broadcast filtering, we are excited to bring fans videos on demand (VODs). Xbox One is the first console where you can view Twitch videos on demand. You’ll begin to see highlights and past broadcasts available to watch at any time, even when the broadcaster is offline.

Finally, your Home screen has been overhauled to provide a more personalized experience. Follow specific games or specific channels, which then pop up right on your Home screen. Broadcasters are also receiving some hot new profile pages, so viewers can learn more about them.

“Xbox One helped cement Twitch’s place in the living room with its robust set of features,” said Annie Berrones, Director of Product Marketing, Twitch. “With this impressive set of updates, including the ability to now follow the games you want, view archived videos and have access to more advanced directories, video game streaming and spectating as part of the home entertainment experience is only going to get stronger.”

Check out the embedded video for a guided tour of the new features, then fire up your Twitch on Xbox One app, and find exactly what you want to watch!

Wow. This is so awesome. It’s funny before I owned an xbox one I couldn’t understand the whole watching people play video games thing .. but I’ve been finding myself enjoying it quite a bit.

My favorite use for it so far is when I go into the games store and look at a game that I might be interested picking up.. 9 times out of 10 someone’s streaming it so I can get a really good feel of if I’ll like it or not right there on the spot.

Sometimes it’s cool just to kick back and watch some multiplayer as well. Really happy about all these cool new features.

I was playing my ps4 the other day and I realized I couldn’t even find the twitch all if it has one at all? Not too sure. Man I hate that operating system so much. I was so glad to turn back on my Xbox one lol

Love the updates! However, some of the changes to the following section made things a little worse for me. I follow upwards of 50 streamers and now it is not as easy to see who is live. For example. in my followed section it doesn’t sort by who is live, show what games they are playing, or put the streamers with most viewers in front. The old Twitch app did all those things very well for the “Following” section and really should be changed back. The additions for filters are cool but most people just watch the streamers with the most viewers or ones that are most popular in that games community. The best new feature is the ability to watch past broadcasts and highlights. Also the ability to change stream quality is awesome. All in all I love the update, just hope to get back some of the functionality in the Following section…